State Puts Caroline's Water Permit On Hold

October 29, 2024

By Cathy Dyson, Free Lance-Star; Fredericksburg.com

In response to questions raised at last month’s town-hall meeting, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is suspending the public hearing process for Caroline County’s water intake project until it receives more information about the proposal’s many impacts.

In a letter Caroline dated Friday, DEQ requested that Caroline provide reports within 60 days that address how much the salinity level of the Rappahannock River can change before it affects beneficial uses downstream. Those uses range from farming and protecting fish and wildlife to recreation, navigation and cultural and aesthetic values.

DEQ also wants information on the effects on Polecat Creek and the Mattaponi River, which also would be impacted by the project.

Caroline wants to extract a maximum of 13.9 million gallons of surface water a day from the Rappahannock, at a farm on the south bank of the river, off Tidewater Trail and near The Lodge at Moss Neck.

Caroline officials have repeatedly stated they need a new source of drinking water as the Potomac Aquifer gets depleted. Their solution calls for taking water out of the river and piping it 35 miles across the county to Carmel Church.

There, water is needed for future residential development as well as for up to three data centers that have been approved or discussed by county officials, according to Caroline’s permit application. After use, the water would be treated and discharged into the Mattaponi River, according to the plan.

The county currently has 3,390 acres zoned for industrial uses, Eric Seavey, DEQ’s water withdrawal permitting manager, told the crowd of about 200 people at the town-hall meeting last month.

Many speakers at that meeting, including State Sen. Richard Stuart, who represents all the affected localities, said the issue wouldn’t have garnered so much concern, and public scrutiny, if it was about drinking water for county residents.

“The fact they want to ship this to Carmel Church, for economic development and data centers, in such an enormous amount is a great concern to the folks I represent,” he said.

Stuart sent a copy of his remarks, co-signed by State Del. Hillary Pugh Kent, to DEQ Director Mike Rolband on Sept. 25. He got a response a month later from the director and a copy of the letter DEQ set Caroline, also dated Oct. 25.

Stuart shared the correspondence with The Free Lance–Star.

No one from Caroline County government responded to the newspaper’s request for a comment.

Months ago, DEQ made the preliminary decision to issue the permit for the Caroline water-intake facility, but agency officials decided to hold a town hall due to significant community interest, according to the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall website at townhall.virginia.gov.

DEQ had planned to hold a second public hearing — and advertise it on the Regulatory Town Hall website — after preparing a report about the Sept. 25 meeting and responses to questions raised. DEQ also planned to include other public comments that had been posted on the website in its report.

But as stated in the most recent letter, DEQ is putting all that on hold until it receives more information from Caroline. Once it does, the department will make whatever changes are necessary to the draft permit and possibly readvertise the updated version for public comment.

In the letter to Caroline, DEQ requested documentation, studies and updated models to determine the acceptable level of salinity change that will not affect uses downstream.

Several farmers at last month’s meeting expressed concerns that taking more water from the river would raise the level of saltwater downstream. Farmers such as Rafe Parker, who grows vegetables in Leedstown, in Westmoreland County, are “on the edge of saltwater already,” he said last month.

Parker has systems set up to draw water from the river to irrigate his crops, but he can’t do that an average of once every five years. When drought causes water levels to drop, the water becomes too salty to spray on plants.

DEQ asked for the same information and up-to-date models regarding acceptable changes in salinity for Polecat Creek and the Mattaponi River, where the water will be discharged after usage.

Other speakers at last month’s town-hall meeting said they feared what James Hunley III called the “unknown effects” of taking so much water out of the Rappahannock.

The Essex County resident farms in Caroline and has irrigated with river water for more than 40 years — and has seen drastic changes in that time.

“I look at the water around our farms and I see the changes, such as lack of lily pads, marsh rats, cattails, all that used to be there at the creek,” he said. “The situation doesn’t show any sign of improvement and … it’s unlikely the county could pull such a large amount of water from the river without returning a single drop without negative results.”

Stuart reminded DEQ in his letter that the agency has told King George County that it must find a new source for drinking water and that the Rappahannock is the only option.

He also said Amazon Web Services has a withdrawal permit to remove millions of gallons of water per day from the Rappahannock in King George. The deal with Amazon is on hold as the Board of Supervisors didn’t like the deal the former board negotiated. But if the deal were to proceed, the withdrawal sites for the Amazon and Caroline projects aren’t far apart as the river flows.

“I’m very worried about all this pressure on the Rappahannock, which is still relatively pristine compared to the Potomac and the James,” Stuart said on Monday.

This article originally appeared in the Free Lance-Star. Click Here for Original Article